Life, Death, & the Polytheist Revival

Pagan Blog Propmpts: Seeds of Change

Okay, I was off about my return to blogging. I still have so much to write about, but it seems that all of my energy goes into working lately. While I am capable of working a full-time job (or two hours shy of it) in retail, I much preferred the days where I was working around 18. Yes, right now I really, really need the money. But I am just so, so, very tired. I score 100% introversion on the Meyers-Brigg personality test (INFPs represent!). I’m what psychology calls a “highly sensitive person.” I’m a clairvoyant empath. I’m really not surprised that I’m flat out exhausted and too burnt out right now to create anything from jewelry to writing to simply cooking like I used to.

Thank goodness for Pagan Blog Prompts! Just when I’m feeling utterly complacent and unexpressive, I get this email in my mailbox:

As the Wheel moves from the dark chilly winter into the brighter and cool spring, what seeds are you planting?

This could be literal seeds (herbs and veggies for your personal or community garden), or figurative (as in changes in yourself or your life and surroundings).

The seeds you plant now, when nurtured and fed, will define the harvest you reap in the Fall….

Well, let me tell you… Haha. There are BIG changes coming up in my life. Huge ones. Exciting ones! The whole thing about how your life can change in a blink of an eye is all too true. It can. It will.

Sadly these are changes that will keep me from gardening this summer, but I suppose that will be okay.

I am embarrassed to admit it, but long ago I defaulted on my student loans due to my inability to work and my pride in not allowing anyone to help me take care of them. This has actually been a slightly hidden blessing, because honestly I’ve not known what I want to do when I “grow up.” So technically it’s caused me from gaining a lot more debt since I’ve not been able to afford to go back to school, which would have resulted in me jumping from one side of the spectrum to another to another in majors, most likely wasting a lot of time and money trying to figure it out.

Not that I didn’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. It was just that I wanted to, you know, explore my options of what I wanted to be doing. It’s not always easy to accept what your calling is, I guess. Ministry if you’re wondering, but I digress…

This brings me to last month while I was doing my taxes. I knew I had refunds from both federal and state coming, but I also knew that it was going to get taken to pay off some of my student loans. That was fine, because if they didn’t take it I was going to give it to them anyway just to get that monkey off my back. What I didn’t expect was that it was going to pay off my entire defaulted student loan. To the dollar. Not a penny less or a penny more.

For those that don’t believe in the magic of everyday life or the hand of the Divine working directly with mankind in our present time, I give the above example of why you may want to reconsider your point of view. (Though I doubt you are reading this, because my friends that read this are typically like-minded.) I genuinely, positively, and completely feel that this act has not only been divine intervention, but also a reward for all the work I’ve done to get to this exact place in my life in recent years.

What does it all mean? It means I’m going back to school! After careful consideration and a very honest evaluation of what my temperament and physical limitations are, I decided that perhaps working in the rainforest doing ethnobotany wasn’t going to work out for me. Plus it wouldn’t be the best option for having a family, since I want that in my future very, very much. Sorry I can’t come to your soccer game, honey, but Mommy has to go study with a shaman in French Guiana.

So we came back to ministry and religious studies. I knew this is what I’m supposed to be doing six years ago. Funny how it’s taken me this long to come full circle and fully accept this calling. My stubbornness and ability to fight what I’m supposed to be doing tooth and nail is quite expansive.

Anyway, this decision seemed to come at an odd time. My boyfriend had applied to two universities for grad school – The University of Missouri Columbia and some place in Oklahoma City that I refused to move to. Well, he got into UofM a couple weeks ago.

Another weird coincidence? Well, two actually… UofM had become my first choice for college because their religious studies program looks like it’s right up my alley.

Secondly, my family, which means the world to me, all live within an hour-and-a-half from there if not directly in Columbia. You see, I’m from Missouri originally, but we moved when I was three to Iowa.

Iowa that I’m sick and tired of. Iowa that is freezing to the point it makes me hurt. Iowa that feels like I’ve grown out of like some pair of pants. None of my close friends live here anymore, and even if they did I’d be two hours away from them.

This isn’t to say that I’m going to live in Missouri forever. In fact if I end up as an interim minister within the Unitarian Universalist Association, most likely I’ll be apt to move every few years for a while. But until it’s time to go to divinity school, I am going to be so thrilled to call Missouri my home.

I was quick to call my mother and tell her the news. She was quick to decide she too was moving home. This takes a lot of weight off my shoulders, because at some point she and I are going to be miles and miles apart. I’m more comfortable with the thought of her being close to her mother and sisters than in Iowa alone. Even if she’s not really alone here, but in my mind she is since she’ll have no family here. Family, after all, is so very, very important – Be it biological or of choice.

So, long story short, there it is. So much to say, but not enough time or energy. So much to do and having to force myself to do it despite the fact I’d rather be napping.